Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa remained silent on the future of the national lottery on Friday afternoon — with only a day left before Uthingo’s licence expires.
Uthingo is the current lottery operator.
Save to say the minister would announce his decision before midnight on Saturday, officials of his department still could not indicate when an announcement would be made.
On March 5, Judge Willie Seriti of the Pretoria High Court ruled that the process by which the National Lottery Board had awarded a new licence to the Gidani consortium had been flawed.
He said the board had failed to investigate the shareholdings in the first preferred bidder, Gidani, and the second preferred bidder, Uthingo.
That information was material for Mpahlwa to apply his mind properly under the Lotteries Act, he said.
The board’s failure to obtain information about the shareholders had resulted in Uthingo being recommended as the second preferred bidder despite Education Minister Naledi Pandor — ”obviously” a political office bearer — having shares in a company with a stake in Uthingo.
Seriti said this finding made it unnecessary to rule on legal argument that Gidani was also excluded because its shareholders included two members of the African National Congress national executive committee, Chris Nissen and Max Sisulu.
The court ruling put the entire lottery licence matter back in Mpahlwa’s hands. — Sapa